


He ain’t me, baby

by Catharrington



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy is Alive, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Fuck Buddies to Lovers, Good Friend Robin Buckley, Jealousy, M/M, Post Season 3, Protective Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington Is a Mess, The Upside Down
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:20:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23383660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catharrington/pseuds/Catharrington
Summary: Steve didn’t think he had any more room in his short traumatic life for another heart break, but as his hands curled into fists on the railings of Starcourt Mall, as he watched the one good thing in his life choke to death in black blood, Steve made room for it. Getting over the loss of a fuck buddy isn’t easy. Getting over your fuck buddy that you were hopeless in love with was harder. Steve decides to try a warm body with rockstar hair to numb the pain. That helps... until Hell itself spits back out Billy Hargrove.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington/Original Character(s)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 113





	1. Secret meeting place

**Author's Note:**

> So this is one of my favorite ways to dream Billy is still alive. Consider this a season 4 write, Duffer brothers DM me for copyright into ;) 
> 
> I applied this to [this wonderful plot](https://billyandsteve.tumblr.com/post/188747070812/ahhh-damn-billy-coming-back-when-steve-already-has) by @billyandsteve on tumblr who is always so full of good ideas. She wrote for a hot and heavy Billy coming back from the upside down and finding Steve with another metal head boyfriend. And jeeze that’s inspirational~ thank you for that!

Robin was cool, Steve found that out a little later than he wished he had, but he knew now that Robin was cool. After Starcourt and having his heart shattered into a million pieces, again, he got a job working at Family Video with Robin, again. They started sticking together closer outside of work much more than at Scoops. 

It was there that Steve found out she took her nerdy high school orchestra whatever knowledge into something cool, she was in a band. She was actually a super great lead singer in a band lovingly called ‘Go down in history’. They had a drummer named Samantha who weirdly enough asked people to call her Samantha, a bass player named Ricky who Steve is sure he recognized from high school, but wouldn’t that be awkward to ask. 

And their guitar player was named Henry, an easy name for an easy on the eyes guy. He asked them to call him Hendrix when he first got there and auditioned casually like he was already in the band. But no one called him that, he was going to stay Henry. 

Their first day of practice, second day if your Henry and never entertained the idea you weren’t going to get in, and Steve was looking. Really, everyone was looking as Henry tuned his expensive sun-flare colored guitar and strummed out something close to purple rain. 

But Steve couldn’t help himself from really staring.

Henry had long dark hair curled into tight ringlets that framed his sharp face perfectly, and he sometimes wore a bandana around his forehead. Steve knew he wanted to try and touch those curls before he even saw Henry, but he tried to keep it to himself. 

When the band got together, Steve tagged along as Robin’s driver. Sometimes he would help with vocals and lyrics, both Robin insisted he was good at but Steve thought she was just being nice, and sometimes he would do a coffee run if they ran too long. But mostly he was there for rides. Not to look at Henry. 

It was at their third practice when Steve was actually helping that he noticed Henry was looking back, just a little. 

“Your voice is great, Steve,” Robin was holding a microphone towards him pleadingly, “It’s soft and perfect for this song! Can’t you just humor me?”

The rest of the band was mirroring her puppy eyes and sipping coffee he just got back from getting. Steve dragged a hand through his hair as he contemplated. Then he saw Henry watching from the back corner of the little room, his eyes dark like his hair, his jaw scratchy with a little 5 o’clock shadow, and he was looking. 

“Sure,” Steve smiled in a lazy way he knew made his face handsome. Then he took the microphone and tried to keep his eyes closed as he sang the song she wrote. 

Robin was flippant about her lyrics most of the time, but she was smart and knew how to write deep lyrics that felt heavy on his tongue. Deep lyrics about monsters and black veins that only them two knew about. Steve tried to keep his eyes closed as he sang but he could still feel those dark eyes on him. 

When he finished the song and Samantha’s drums finished him off softly, Steve opened his eyes to see Henry’s typically bored narrowed eyes now wide. And maybe it didn’t all have to be a song about black veins. 

The band worked hard to collect a small list of gigs in and around Hawkins, how about that. For the first show Steve drove Robin to meet up with the rest who had all come together with the equipment in a huge used van. Steve tried to keep the jokes of it being a punk rock fire hazard mystery machine to himself. But when he did let one slip Robin elbowed him in the ribs, “not everyone has a nice ass car from their pops, rich kid, don’t jinx us!” 

“Sorry, sorry,” he laughed with his hands up. 

The show was short and many people were there for drinks and food rather than the local youth trying their hands at fame. Steve found himself leaned up against his car waiting for Robin to finish packing up. When Henry huddled up next to him, smoking a cigarette and holding his pack out, a loose excuse to get close. Steve accepted the offered smoke with a shy smile. 

He wasn’t shy really, he was expecting the attention. He was even expecting the long fingers covered with rings when they lifted to cup the back of his neck. Henry’s fingers tangled into the long strands of his dark brown hair lightly, much softer to the touch than his guitar skills would suggest. 

As Henry pulled him in for a kiss Steve tried to close his eyes and focus on the cold metal of the rings and willed himself to dream the hand was someone else’s warmth. 

“Hey, dingus,” Robin’s voice was hurried. Steve pulled apart from Henry’s lips and turned to her, his eyes wide with annoyance rather than embarrassment. 

Robin was different, she was boiling up to her eyeballs. “Get the hell in the car.” 

Henry was smiling again, dangerous as a rattlesnake, as he pulled Steve down for another kiss before he left. Then Steve got inside the car like a good friend. He turned to Robin and opened his mouth to speak, but she was faster. And angrier. 

“What! Was that!” She said each word louder and said them each with a push of her open palms against the dashboard. 

Steve took the cigarette he had gotten and lit it, taking a deep drag, before he replied. “What was what? It’s just a kiss, don’t you ever have a little fun?” 

Robin didn’t back down. “Just a kiss? First of all you have to let the band know if you want to date a member!” She was glaring daggers, but Steve kept his attention on the road. 

“Not dating him,” he whispered. 

“Second!” She held up two fingers like she didn’t hear him, “what the hell happened to my sad boy torn to shreds by Starcourt?” 

Her words were so loud. And Steve really didn’t want to hear about it. He shrugged, taking a deep suck of the filter half crushed in his teeth, and allowed the ash to fall on the floor boards. “This is me, Robs.” 

“No. This is some high school bullshit.” She had her body leaned into his, trying like hell to get him to look at her. “This isn’t you. This is the you that you were-,” 

“Don’t talk to me about me, okay?” Steve’s voice was low as he spoke slowly. He turned to flick his eyes to her in a calculating way, sizing her up as she sat hunched over. “Pretty sure I don’t have to run everything, or everyone, I do through you. I have my own life.” 

Robin’s breath hitched with that. She pulled her shoulders back then herself back as she settled into the seat. Her eyes turned down to her scuffed converse. The ride changed to silence then. Steve’s hands were white grasping the wheel so he never reached up to turn on the radio, they rode back into Hawkins in silence. 

When they got close to Robin’s house she dared to take an auditable inhale. “Is this like... a fight?” She asked on shaky breath. 

Steve thought about that until he pulled into her driveway. He threw the car into park and unlocked the doors with a sharp click. “Just leave it alone. Doesn’t have to be a fight.” 

“Leave it alone,” she said back like she didn’t believe it. “Do you hear yourself? After everything we’ve been though, after everything I’ve told you and you’ve told me! And all these damn secrets we carry for each other, you're okay with saying just leave you tonguing some douchebag alone? He’s not good for you! He’s not some answer for you, Steve! Don’t you get it?” 

Steve pushed his eyes closed as he spoke, pushing the words out one at a time. “Leave me alone.”

Robin was up and out of the car fast. She slammed the car door hard. Steve didn’t watch her get inside before he pulled away. 

Steve was half expecting Henry would get cut from the band for that, luckily he didn’t. Steve felt like he was cut, though, as Robin stopped calling for rides and continued the cold shoulder at work. Their conversations were hollow but friendly, like real coworkers. Not two people who saved the world together, not two people who shared their darkest secrets in hushed whispers, not two people who held each other close as he cried over a boy who never was. 

Steve’s throat felt coated in bile as he was punished by this silence. But even without the invitation he knew Henry’s phone number, and the bands short list of gigs, and Steve knew he could find something warm in those arms. 

The bar they weaseled themselves into tonight was small, and old, but had a decent enough sized stage that Henry could spin around as he played and not hurt Ricky with his guitar. The audience actually cheered for once, especially the ones who were drunk, and Steve found himself clapping too. 

He followed Robin with his eyes trying to let her know he was proud, but she hurried off the stage as soon as their last song was over, that left Henry in the second tightest pants Steve had ever seen and a black crop top that was an invitation to sin. 

“Didn’t know it was illegal to have some fun,” Henry’s voice was used from the stage but sounded nice as he pressed his lips into Steve’s cheek. 

They were out in the parking lot pressed up against Steve’s car, drawn in a curtain of darkness at 1am. Steve didn’t reply to that, weirded out that they both called it only having fun, he just fisted the silver chains hanging from Henry’s neck and pulled him in for a real kiss. 

They were pressed tight, hip to hip, licking lazy into each other’s mouths while Steve’s hands explored. He touched the hem of Henry’s crop top, feeling the jagged line cut with scissors, he touched the heavy leather belt keeping those tightly packed jeans in their place, he fanned out his fingers to touch along the small of his back, dragging the heat and sweat from Henry’s skin like a dying man drinking water. 

Steve pushed his hands up farther and under Henry’s shirt to get his arms circled around his muscular torso. Steve had to stop himself from going up, interlacing his fingers around Henry’s back so he didn’t reach out for swollen biceps, because a part of him would be looking for bulky scar lines of a tattoo this man didn’t have. 

Henry was simple. He left his hands flat against the car on either side of Steve’s shoulders, pinning him in and holding himself up as they lazily rocked back and forth against each other. Steve wasn’t about to tell him that he longed for arms around his waist. 

He just tried to enjoy the feeling of being wanted. 

There was a clicking noise of wheels against pavement as the parking lot stopped being a privacy curtain. Henry pulled away first, his lips cherry red and wet and perfect if Steve kept his eyes on only his lips. “Don’t wanna get in trouble from mama... right, Sugar?” Henry’s voice was a distraction. 

Steve willed himself to laugh and shrug, one side of his lips turned up like he didn’t care. “Give me another cigarette before you go.” Steve ordered in a low tone. His hands slid down to cup at Henry’s hips while still touching skin. 

With a smile Henry did as he was told. They all loved the bratty attitude and getting ordered around when push comes to shove. Steve wrapped his kiss swollen lips around the butt before turning to light it with his own zippo. 

Robin walked by, her hair a mess and her hands filled with old trunks, their eyes meet for a moment. And maybe she didn’t look as angry as she was before. Steve flicked his zippo closed with a harsh snap and looked away. 

The warm months were going fast and fall was already coming in. July 4th a bad memory buried under dead leaves. Steve tried to catch every show he had written on the list, but one close to the end was cut short. Steve was in his car in front of the dingy bar waiting to go inside and bring back out someone warm, when the radio trapped inside his glove box vibrated with noise. 

“Steve?” A little voice called out. 

“Steve do you copy, over?” 

And of course he copied. Steve threw his glove box open and pulled the radio out with shaky fingers. “This is Steve. I copy you Dustin. What’s up, over?”

“Steve, my man! I knew you would copy!” Dustin’s voice broke into sing song and it was good to hear a familiar voice. “We have to meet up, something is happening with El. It’s a disturbance in the force, over.”

Steve did watch enough of that movie to understand that nerd reference, but what he didn’t know was something happening with El. Last time Steve was filled in she was low battery and couldn’t use her powers anymore. And didn’t even live in Hawkins. “What’s happening with El? Is she okay? Over!” Steve asked. 

Dustin was slow in replying, like he was choosing his words he wanted to say over the hand held radio. “Can you come pick me up? And take me over to the Byers’ house, over?” 

“Now?” Steve turned his eyes to the entrance of the bar then back down to his hand closed in a fist in his lap. 

“Yeah, now, over!” Dustins voice went loud but not angry. 

And that was all Steve needed to groan back that was was on the way and shove the radio back into his glove box. He took another look at the bar shrinking in his rear view window. A cold shiver wrapped fingers around the back of Steve’s neck as he thought about that swirling portal of lights and the darkness it kept. 

When he picked Dustin up he was meet with a boy pacing back and forth in his drive way who all but jumped into the car and wouldn’t stop talking. “She never stopped trying to get her powers back! El is super tough and never gave up! I knew they couldn’t be permanently lost.” Dustin was ranting on. 

Steve was lost. “So she’s... Carrie again?” He motioned with a wave of his hand like he was using super powers. 

Dustin sighed but smiled. “Yeah, but like not all the way, you know? She’s 30- 40% battery, Will guessed.”

The car pounded down the highway as Steve found himself quietly nodding along. They were close to the old Byers‘ house, now standing empty and vacant. No one had bought it off the market yet. Maybe too many stories about zombie boy still floating around Hawkins even three years after the disappearance happened. Whatever it was, the empty house made for a good secret meeting place. 

As Steve pulled up he saw familiar cars, so he allowed himself to exhale a deep breath. Even when Nancy was the one who opened the door with a shaky smile, Steve still felt like he was wanted, needed here. It was nice.

El was sitting cross legged on a knitted blanket laid down in the middle of the living room. There was a bright blue bandana loose around her neck and her hair was longer, letting the waves stand out prominent, as soft as her smile when she noticed Dustin and Steve walk in. 

The kids, Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and little Will were all hugs and trying not to cry laughter. Nancy slotted herself next to Jonathan and that’s fine, Steve thinks, as he nodded stiffly at the two of them. Will’s mother, “Joyce” she reminded Steve to call her with a soft push of fingers against his shoulder, lead him into their loose circle in the living room. 

Getting closer to the blanket, Steve finally noticed Max siting with her shoulder pressed against El’s, and then Steve’s heart felt like it wanted to make a run for it. 

“Are you okay, sweetie?” Joyce’s voice is soft and comforting as she knelt down in front of El, talking to her like a proper mother. “We can stop if you want to. I know this is a lot... there’s a lot of people. And a lot of pressure?” Her eyes wide as she pulled up her shoulders to her neck. 

El shook her head. “I’m fine.” She gave Joyce a tight lipped smile. “I’m okay. All my friends give me strength.”

Steve couldn't help but turn down to look at the floor, pink dusting his cheeks. He’s only ever done the right thing for these kids, but yeah, friendship. That’s something else. 

Just then, Dustin’s voice erupted in a light “hell yeah,” and that made Steve think maybe he would consider himself these nerd’s friend. 

“All right, sweetie.” Joyce stood up, her hands twisting and wrapping around themselves. “Can you tell everyone here now what you told me?”

The room held its breath as she started talking. 

“Last night I was trying to see how far I could go... into that dark place... and I heard him.” Steve’s heart did make a run for it, bounding and pounding blood fast. El smiled at Joyce as she continued. “Hopper, he’s still alive. In the upside down. I saw him!”

Steve smiled with the the rest of them, glancing around at the other people all lit up with the idea of it. Their smiles were nice, relieved, and he enjoyed the warmth from the others. 

Then Max nudged her arm against El’s side gently, not in a cruel way, just enough to get her attention. “And?” She was smiling wider than anyone around. Her long red hair was tucked up inside a baggy denim jacket, worn with age and time she didn’t cause, and a bright red lipstick stain on the lapel that frightened Steve as he recognized more and more things he thought he would never see again. 

“And,” El’s voice sounded relieved for her friends, for her father. She turned up to Steve like she was relieved for him too. “Hop wasn’t alone. There was someone there with him. They were fighting and staying alive together.” 

“She saw Billy!” Max’s squeak couldn’t be held back as she finished for her friend. And it was official, Steve’s heart was trying to rip itself out from his rib cage. 

“Billy’s alive!” 

The first thing Steve did when he left the Byers’ house was call Henry. He suffered long hours inside with hands clapped over his shoulder and children bustling about over papers and board games trying to plan a rescue operation. Steve was ready to fight, to protect, of course. But there wasn’t a portal or a creepy doctor they could pin blame on this time. The upside down was locked. There was no planning or campaigning that could open a portal up for anyone to come through again. Especially the corpse of someone Steve is pretty sure he watched die. 

No, he wasn’t pretty sure. Steve tilted his head back and finished the last of his cold beer. He couldn’t forget the way he watched Billy die. 

Close to 4 months he spent trying like hell to forget the way tan skin was shredded by that monsters tentacles. But he couldn’t. And it was getting to the point he figured he never would. 

Henry took the cold glass of the empty beer bottle from between Steve’s hands and pressed another into them just as quickly. Steve accepted with a smile and a light kiss before he drank that one down too. 

They were sitting arm to arm on a log at the bank of the quarry. The hollowed out dead tree didn’t seem big enough to support Steve’s weight when he first plopped down on it, but it was holding up just fine. Henry followed on his heels and sat right where Steve wanted him too. 

“Didn't see you in the crowd, sugar, you got busy tonight?” His voice was low again from his time on stage, it licked hot across the back of Steve’s neck. 

“No,” Steve lied. “Just wanted to have a reason to drag you out here alone.”

Henry’s smile wasn’t sharp, it wasn’t glistening like the fangs of a wolf, it was sweet as he leaned forward to trail kisses along the back of Steve’s shoulders. His mouth working against the stiff fabric of his expensive jacket. “Alone time?” He breathed easy. 

Steve finished his other beer, chugging it down thirsty, then let the glass fall to the sandy ground. “Yeah, alone time.” He slurred the words around liquor wet lips as he crawled over into Henry’s lap. 

The pet name ‘sugar’ was lost between their kiss. Steve clutched at Henry’s leather jacket hard, like a starving man gone wild with too much drink, because he was a starving man gone wild with too much drink. Too much loneliness. 

His fingers curled into fists around plush leather, pulling stretching, begging to be relied in. Begging for two strong arms to wrap around his waist and move him where he didn’t know he wanted to go. 

But Henry’s hands stayed on Steve’s jeans. Caressing softly up and down denim covered thighs then moving to rest on his waist. 

They kissed and moaned and rocked against each other until the sun peaked above the looming fish bowl cliffs of the quarry. 

Steve untangled himself and left with a chaste goodbye kiss. Henry asked once if he was okay to drive, Steve waved him off with a goofy smile, and then the guitar player left as well in a rusting black muscle car. 

When Steve made it home he curled around a pillow on his bed and screamed


	2. Into the woods

On the bands list of gigs there was only one left before they stopped touring for holidays and cold weather. October was harsh to the Indiana nights, and it was ticking right by to November faster than Steve could catch up. That would make 4 months, but he wasn’t counting. 

The last place on the bands set list was the same small bar right out side of Hawkins Steve was at when his radio buzzed to life. Now the radio sat turned on full volume and fully charged inside his glove box, ready for a call. 

The day Steve was at the Byers’ he wasn’t great at following along but he knew they did have a plan in motion. They wrote up a collection of where portals used to be: the tunnels under the rotten pumpkin fields, the tree Nancy crawled into the day she and Jonathan got lost in the woods, the portal in the middle school that the demogorgon ripped open to get his claws around Dr. Brenner. If they were there once who is to say they couldn’t be opened again. 

Steve could grasp the understanding of residual energies and echos, but he clocked out when the party started drawing up a device to actually measure it. He would leave that to them. And when they needed a babysitter to protect them and their Ghostbuster equipment he was going to be on call, right there, first in line when the portal opened. 

That is if they managed to open one. And if El is right about the survivors inside. Steve was leaving a lot up to chance. But still he wrapped his fingers around the little radio and brought it inside the bar with him. 

‘Go down in history’ was doing sound checks inside. Samantha clicking her sticks respectfully where she needed while holding a soft customer service smile, and Ricky was getting his huge bass guitar balanced on his thin shoulders and into tune. Henry was there leaned against the wall very devil may care as he absentmindedly plucked at his guitars cords. 

Steve took a seat at the end of the bar close to the door, smiling as he asked the bartender for only a coke and thank you, the whole time looking around for sights of Robin. She was still quiet to him, and he missed her. 

“Hey, dingus.” The nickname was soft just like the voice calling from his other side. Steve turned in the rusty bar stool to see Robin, her arms crossed but smiling. 

Steve felt his chest loosen just a little. “Hey, Robs. Looking great out there.” He inwardly winced at his own comment, she wasn’t even on the stage with the band, and that sounded too much like something you say to a baseball player. But she just laughed. 

“Listen, Steve, I’m glad you came. Really, I’m glad you have come to all our shows. I’ve been talking with Henry and he says you guys are dating?” Her eyes went comically wide as if she was saying some sarcastic joke. Steve tried to stop his own from widening as she said that too, it would be the first time he heard Henry say anything about dating. 

Robin didn’t notice, she continued with a flick of her wrist. “So I guess I wanted to squish this... say I’m sorry and congrats.”

Congrats didn’t feel correct, especially in such an untrusting and blatantly disgusted tone of Robin’s voice.

But Steve took what he could get. “Thanks for squishing it. I really missed being your schmuck, you know? I’ve told you that before.” He laughed while rolling his eyes and it was just like they were back behind the scoops counter making fun of customers hair and outfits like it never even happened. 

Steve soaked up the familiarity of Robin. He picked it up and put it in his pocket with his two other things that could produce serotonin in his brain. 

Steve started talking happily, even reached into his pocket and took out his thin flask holding a great stolen rum to go with his coke. “It’s lame around this ghost town without you, Robs. Hanging out with the pipsqueaks is like being at school again with these weird character sheets they keep trying to get me to fill out. And Henry is good at lots of things... conversations isn’t one of them.” 

Robin did laugh at that, her arms uncrossing as she reached out for his drink. “You don’t have to tell me that. He’s got the aesthetic and talent but he’s as boring as a pet rock.” She looked like she wanted to say more on the subject, but instead she took a long drink and twisted her face sour. “Oh my god, you always put way too much in!” 

Steve tried to defend himself but he was interrupted by a static hiss. The radio nestled in his jacket pocket rusted to life. 

“Steve, come in, Steve,” Dustin’s static voice rambled on. “Ahoy to Steve!”

He scrabbled around in his pocket trying to pull out the radio before it made too much noise at the crowded bar while Robin watched curiously. 

“What does the children want their babysitter for tonight?” She had a tone of sarcasm but her furrowed brow made it obvious she truly wanted to know. 

“It’s some game thing with them, you know, like before.” The last two words were kept quieter than the rest. Steve stood from the chair and motioned with a wave for them to head somewhere quieter. They slipped outside side by side, walking up to half shelter themselves behind his burgundy BMW, the radio still prattling along. 

“More Russians?” Robin whispered slightly afraid and slightly eager as he called back out to Dustin. 

“I wish,” Steve’s tired words were lost under the crackle of the radio. 

“Finally, Steve! Took you long enough. Were you taking a shit?” They could hear laughter in the background meaning Dustin wasn’t alone. 

“Language, Henderson. And fuck off.” Steve replied making Robin chuckle. “What do you want, over?” 

“We’ve got a lead in operation: hero’s rescue. On bike to the location of the last portal right now! Give us your location! We have to meet up!” Dustin’s questions were quick and he ran out of breath as he spoke. The whole thing felt so urgent, Steve had to lean against the cold metal of his car to ground himself. 

He gulped then pressed the button to reply. “You tell me your location, dipshits. I have a car, remember?”

A little curse from the other side and then Dustin was replaced with a more calm Lucas. “We are heading out of town right now, going down Alexander street over to Maple. The portal was right next to Highway 74, Hopper spotted it while investigating the fields and he thinks it’s the best bet. We are meeting there! With El!”

Steve wasn’t ready for all this tonight, his head still swimming with even the idea of them still being alive. And now it seems they were alive enough to talk El into devising another hair brained scheme to get them all killed. He licked his lips and closed his eyes to think fast about his reply. 

“El, that’s the girl who can throw things with her mind right?” Robin asked, pointing at the radio with an unreadable expression. “And Hopper, that’s the police chief who died. Is she able to talk to the dead? Is that something she can just do?” 

Steve nodded his head along to her guess work, smart as ever and cracking codes easy. Good for him, less to explain to her. “Yeah, no, not the dead. He’s alive in the upside down.” He held one hand up and flipped so his palm was facing upwards. 

Robin’s wide eyes followed his hand. 

“Ahoy out there, did you copy?” Dustin was back on the radio. 

“Yeah, yeah, I copy. I’ll be there soon! Over!” Steve clicked the button down to reply then pushed the antenna back into the radio with more force than necessary. He moved to tuck it back into his jacket pocket, when a hand slapped down against the top of his car. Both Robin and Steve jumped out of their skin, spinning like children caught with cookies toward the noise. 

“What’s up with that, you got a cell phone, rich boy?” Henry was there, standing on the other side with his hand pressed palm flat against the roof of Steve’s car, sticking his nose into business so far out of his range. 

“Oh this is just perfect.” Steve muttered as he zipped his jacket up and turned with a handsome smile on his face. “I’ve got to go,” he shoved his thumb over his shoulder in an indication for what exactly he didn’t know. He just needed to get in his car and floor it. “I’m on call for babysitting and there’s this emergency. Wow, you know, what are you going to do?” Steve giggled. 

Henry wasn’t convinced. He came around the car quickly and his ring covered hands reached up to cup the back of Steve’s neck before Steve could force himself to open the door and wedge it between them. 

“I need to talk to you, seriously, before you drive off.” His lips were wet and soft looking, but his breath reeked of whiskey. 

Steve turned his face as much away as he could. He reached out to open his drivers door handle and this time did open the door to push space between them. Henry’s hand dropped from his neck to curl over the top of his window. Steve sighed. “No time for that really, but I have your number, right? I’ll just call you?”

Henry’s mouth almost took on a snarl in protest, Steve would like to have seen it, but from behind them the passengers side door opened. 

“Dingus,” Robin had the same melodious voice as when she cracked the Russian code, “this bar is on highway 74. We need to go now!”

And he agreed with that whole heartedly. They both ducked into the car and slammed the doors behind them, but right after the back door opened and Henry stumbled inside. 

Steve turned around in his seat to try and convince the other to leave them be, but Robin braced her arm on the side of the drivers seat. Her eyes willed him to go on, hurry, no time, so Steve turned and started the car. 

The junction of streets Lucas gave them was only a few blocks away from the bar. Steve found himself blinding the party still sitting on their bikes on the side of the highway with his headlights. He pulled over and parked. 

Half of ‘Go down in history’ got out of the car with him, and how his cheeks burnt as he noticed the pointed glaring. Steve took the long way around his car to collect his bat from the trunk as he went. He spun the familiar wood around in his hand once and admired the rust colored stains. Hopefully he won’t be using this. 

Henry was stumbling and slurring his confusion loudly, but not messy enough to warrant a bat to the face. Robin and Steve tried their best to just ignore him, as well as the party’s in unison complaining of “you brought a dunk guy?” as they focused on Dustin’s explanation. 

“This is the very edge of one of the farms that got attacked with demo-sludge. Hopper put in the police records he wrote that there was a huge tree in particular that had a lot of sludge and a huge scratch on it. The cops never followed it up, but now El thinks it could be a portal location.” His hands talked along with him, waving around in the small amount of light along the road, and making the cord running from his plastic headset to the radio on his hip bounce. 

“How did you manage to get your hands on police records?” Robin’s face was impressed as she watched over Steve’s shoulder. 

“Well, that’s a long story,” Dustin said, his hand scratching the back of his neck and sporting a soft blush. 

Behind him Will, Mike, and Lucas wrestled with a folded paper map. Lucas in particular was holding a metal box poked through with so many antennas and tin foil it looked like a movie prop. Next to them El was standing stock still looking out into the woods searching for something. Steve recognized Max next to her, a well loved skateboard tucked under one arm while the other pointed into the woods, the most determined looking of them all. 

And god, if she was full of hope shouldn’t Steve carry hope as well? 

He pushed his thoughts down into submission, Steve was here to protect the kids. Steve did not spend the last few nights dreaming of warm familiar hands trapped behind a vail of cold ash just waiting to reach out for him. No, he was here for his shitty children. 

“Let’s find this tree,” he said very cool as he lead off into the woods. 

The tree’s spot wasn’t far out, just as Lucas had said, it was standing on the edge of a small clearing like the forest was making room for it. They only trekked five minutes before they spotted it. Dustin’s description from the police records were two years old, but they would carry into the vision of what the tree looked like now. Large, sprawling, and scarred with a huge black gash down it’s side. 

There was a scattering of dead leaves around its base fallen like the others because of the Autum temperature drop, but different at the same time. These leaves were blacked and scorched. 

“This is it, I can feel it.” El stepped out from behind where Steve was leading with the head of his bat. She walked to the tree and put two hands against the bark. 

“I can feel them.” 

The rest of the group stayed a little behind. She started walking in a circle around the tree, feeling as much with her hands as possible. Steve didn’t know what she was looking for except that she was getting her hands dirty with soot.

Suddenly, she seemed to find something. El stilled right in front of the scar across the tree and pressed her fingertips against the blackest part. Steve watched in awe as her fingers came back glossy. Oh shit. 

“I can open the portal from this side. Then it’s going to be up to Hopper and Billy to come through.” She announced to the rest of them. 

She took a step back and lifted her hands to get ready. Steve took that as his cue to stand by her side, bat heavy in his hands as he readied himself for what’s to come. On the other side of her Lucas stood with his slingshot pulled back, while the others lined up behind them. 

“What if something else comes through?” Steve whispered for only El to hear. The vision of the demogorgon tall and skeletal thin with skin white and sickly like a corpse still haunted his nightmares even years after he saw it. He knew it lived on the other side, and he would be lying if he wasn’t afraid.

El didn’t say anything. Her lips were a thin determined line as she kept her eyes on the tree. Then with a sickening moan the bark started giving way. The scar seemed to curl into itself and widen slowly, crawling and creaking like a squeaky door hinge. The tree shook with the force. Black color gave way to a dark purple, then blood red, then it widened even further to revel a pink membrane stretched taught. The tree opened like a wound to the upside down 

Only when the portal was the size of a man, El let herself stop. She dropped her arms with a weak whimper, but Mike was right behind her with comforting words and hands rubbing up and down her arms. 

They stood in silence and waited for the portal to be received. Steve swallowed thickly watching as the light pink of the membrane seemed to roll with shadows on the other side.

Then there was an obvious push against it. The children let out a scream Steve knew he wouldn’t hold against them. From behind them he heard Robin and Henry step farther backwards. 

But Steve didn’t take his eyes from the portal. He was holding his bat iron grasped in front of the children. His knees bent powered up for a swing, arms drawn up and over his shoulder, one foot dug into the ground as he itched to move. Words about planting his feet in his head.

The membrane of the portal pulled sickeningly taught before snapping open with a hissing noise. Steve’s hands flexed over his bat as he listened to the soft chorus of gasps and curses behind him. 

But he couldn’t look away as a long dark arm pushed out and another joined it to pull open the split membrane wide. Globs of matter, dark slime a mixture of blacken ash and red dead things, dripped from the hands heavy as blood from a wound. Inside the portal was dark, Steve couldn’t see into it, could barely see the leg that joined the arms as whoever it was climbed their way into this world. 

He saw dark denim worn and frayed, dirty and tight against thick thighs. Then Steve let his eyes trail up to a mans chest wrapped in a leather jacket crumbling from the effort of flexing and jumping along with his heavy breathing. The effort of stepping out from Hell itself. 

Then his head poked out, and Steve didn’t even need to see the face wrapped in a blood stained cloth up to his goggle covered eyes, Steve only had to see blond ringlets, messy and streaked with blood and filth but still blond, for his legs to weaken under him. For his coiled tight ready-to-strike charge to drop heavy. Heavy as his heart pounding against his rib cage like metal bars. 

This man emerged fully from the portal, dripping wet with slime, colored darker than black with grime, fresh blood soaked up to his knees, and so beautiful it took Steve’s breath away. 

The man walked forward with heavy sure strides, shrugging out of his sloppy jacket as he went. He let the material fall to the ground and now stood in only a rags attempt at a white undershirt. 

His skin under and across his arms were pale, but unmistakably golden from California sunshine, and unmistakably clear of black veins. 

He groaned, long and deep, then lifted the goggles strapped over his eyes and pulled the cloth covering his mouth and nose in one smooth motion. 

“Am I dreaming... or is that you, Harrington?”


	3. Shower without a curtain

Steve’s loaded bat discharged right into the ground, his arms giving out on him as he simply dropped it. By God’s grace his knees didn’t give out, even if they wanted to. His breath was burning hot inside his throat as he looked on, mouth wide open, and just stared at Billy very much alive and very much looking back at him.

“Billy!” A small voice broke over his shoulder before a mess of red hair ran out from the group. Max threw herself hard into Billy, but he caught her with only a smile and no moving or grunting. She had her arms tight around his waist and her nose buried in the filth caked across his stomach, but she didn’t seem to mind. Steve was just happy that little squeaky voice wasn’t his own.

From behind Billy another boot was touching the ground as Hopper pulled himself free of the upside down. His own clothing just as worse for wear in a torn to rags Russian uniform. The rest of the children flocked to Hopper’s assistance lead on by El who was crying so openly it hurt.

From over Steve’s shoulder a hand wrapped around his wrist still holding the bat but limp. Robin came into focus and held Steve’s sight in demand.

“Steve,” she whispered his name. The bat went soft and dropped from his hands over to hers. She took it gracefully, not saying another word, she was so smart.

But Steve’s skin went pale as he remembered they were not lucky enough to be alone. Henry’s arm cupped around Steve’s still slouched shoulders and his hand wrapped around Steve’s forearm. They fit nicely together, and he was warm in the cold night, but the faux familiarity made Steve’s stomach sink.

“What the hell is going on?” His words were whiskey tinted, rushed and sloppy into the side of Steve’s hair. “Who the hell is that?”

And Steve never let his eyes go from Billy’s face. Taking in all the ways the boy had changed, his hair grown long out past his shoulders, his chin scratchy with a strawberry blond beard, and another strip of cloth tied as a headband to keep his face clear. But some things hadn’t changed, the golden necklace of a Saint still sparkled on his neck, and his beautiful eyes were the same. Billy’s same ocean blue eyes that captured Steve so willfully, and now were drowning him.

“Yeah, pretty boy,” Billy held his eyes looking right back. Max was still holding one fist in his shirt like he would evaporate if she let go. But Billy was looking right at Steve. “Who the hell is that?”

“Hargrove,” Steve started but he couldn’t get the words out, they felt choking and loose all at the same time, smoke inside his throat. “Billy... you're not dead.”

He just shook out his long curls and laughed. His muscles bulging under his tight white shirt, and of course those haven’t changed. “Surprise, surprise,” his voice was a charged draw of a bow string as ocean blue eyes turned to look at Henry.

“I watched you die,” Steve felt himself saying more than thinking it.

“Are you going to tell me who this is, Sugar?” Henry asked in a voice with a little more sharpness, finally he gets sharp.

“Maybe, we should just take a second and calm down, or...,” Robin spoke slowly into the other side of Steve’s head but her plea trailed off as she couldn’t think of what to say.

Steve wanted to shrug off the heavy arm across his shoulders but he couldn’t bring himself to move a muscle. He just kept looking long into Billy’s sharp blue eyes.

“I watched you die,” he repeated over the throng of other questions.

Billy’s chest was still heaving hard. His eyes slipped from between Henry and Steve, then back again. Then his lips slowly, so achingly slowly, curled around his sharp teeth into a grin.

“He ain’t me, baby.”

Steve did have the strength to power down a whimper as it tried to leave his lips. Henry’s grip across his shoulders got tighter and his back straightened. From the other side, Robin remained quite. But Steve isn’t looking at her.

“Wha- what?” Steve’s words were just above a whisper.

“I said he wasn’t me.” Billy softened a little bit now that the damage was done. He slowly started to explain more. “At Starcourt, at the pool, even at my damn house. Especially at Heather’s house. None of it was me.”

Max’s little fist tugged on his shirt once to pull his attention down. Steve finally blinked and noticed that they are not alone in their conversation anymore. The children and Hopper are standing on Billy’s other side like this was some argument that needed to have a side chosen.

Henry’s arm slipped from his shoulder down to wrap his hand around Steve’s elbow. Oh that’s right, this was an argument that called for picking a side. Steve and Robin both turned to look at the guitar player at the same time.

“Let’s go,” Steve tried to pull and lead him out the same time Robin said,

“Let’s get out of here, Henry!” She came around the other side of Steve and grabbed at Henry’s other arm. “This is a geek fest, and we’ve still got a show!” She sounded hurried and acted the part well as she pulled the larger man away.

When they disappeared back into the line of trees Steve suddenly felt cold as he stood alone in front of the group, all eyes on him.

“He better not want to join the party. That guy was a serious asshole.” Dustin walked up with his toothy grin and goofy hat. Steve was never happier to see him. He lifted one hand and used it to ruffle the hat on top of Dustin’s little head.

Thankfully, the mood settled into something right in the middle of happy. Steve let himself get pulled into a hug from Hopper, the mans beard grown out long and his clothing reeking, but his hug was comforting. Then Steve lead them all back to where the BMW was parked on the road.

Billy took shot gun faster than anyone could speak, faster than Steve’s heart could keep up with the familiarity of Billy sliding into his passengers seat. Hopper got into the back with El still tucked under his arm in an embrace. Max got into the back seat as well, holding her skateboard, and sitting right behind Billy so she could talk his head off.

The party followed on their bikes as best they could. Steve scolded them about riding bikes in the middle of the night and how they should have told Joyce or Jonathan where they were going. But all of that didn’t matter in light of who was home now.

Steve drove back and tried like hell to keep his head on the road, to keep them safe. Billy was making it very hard for him. Steve could see out of the corner of his eyes that Billy was openly eating him alive, bright blue eyes sharp as daggers digging into his body. They seemed to not get enough. A part of Steve felt like a well kept house plant blossoming under the rays of the sun. Another part of him was screaming in fear.

Max kept talking and it was nice to hear her. She went on about Neil and her mother splitting up. How Susan bought a nice house, a better house, painted pink on the outside and an extra room waiting for Billy to come home. Then she started talking about school. Like they were always this close before.

Billy didn’t seem to care that 4 months ago he hated Max. He replied as best his tired voice could with ‘hums’ and ‘that’s crazy’ and always with a smile on his pretty lips.

Steve tried not to take to many glances at those lips. Billy really made it hard when he decided to lean forward and fiddle with the radio nobs. He leaned his mess of dirty skin and blond hair into Steve’s business more than he needed to. “Let me pick some trash, huh, Harrington? Just this once?”

And god, that was familiar. Steve swallowed down a sob in his throat thickly as he suddenly remembered how he always hated Billy’s music. Loud singers and loud instruments, violent lyrics, playing badly for a purpose or so Billy tried to explain once. In a parked steel blue Camaro overlooking the mirror waters of the quarry late at night. A joint Steve rolled passing between their greedy fingers. Steve trying to focus on how Billy was talking about music genres and not on how his spit he used to seal the joint was now on Billy’s lips.

Steve nodded, pushed one shoulder up in a shrug, and let Billy set the radio to his songs. The volume stayed low, so Max could continue catching up with her big brother.

When they finally arrived, there was a wall of a woman waiting for them with crossed arms and tapping feet. But once Hopper climbed out the back Joyce melted into his side just as El did. They cried openly, thanking any stars they could think to name on getting him back. Max climbed out to follow El onto the porch, looking around for Lucas.

Billy stayed sitting inside the car silently until his song finished. Steve sat with him, trying to calm his breathing as their fingers flexed over the middle console of the car close together but not quite touching. Then as the song fizzled out and the boys caught up to them with their bikes, they climbed out of the car.

Inside the Byers kitchen was empty but a few cracked porcelain mugs left behind. Joyce cleaned them as best she should, filled them with sink water, and handed one to Hopper and one to Billy.

The sheriff almost couldn’t stop talking long enough to take a drink. Lamenting on the creatures and the ash he battled, his story putting impressed smiles on the children circling around him. But he did as Joyce said, taking some pauses to guzzle water down and not caring how it dripped from his mustache.

Steve was leaned against the corner of the counters close to the dark hallway stretching out into the house. His arms crossed against his chest and pushing hard into his ribs. Trying like hell to steady himself from the hurricane effort it took just to look at Billy.

But Steve found he couldn’t look away. He watched as Billy took the mug with a smile and drank the water down fast, some spilling out the corners of his chapped lips. Steve watched as his muscles in his throat contracted around the gulps desperately. He watched as Billy set the mug down against the counter loud, then turned to look back at Steve.

Hopper was still talking, explaining away to Joyce and the party still lined up at his heels. It was easy for Billy to dip away and walk over to where Steve was. He made it look so easy as he walked close enough to pin Steve down to the old counter top, with his eyes and his arms, but instead he only dipped his head.

“Help me out here, would ya?” He asked low for only Steve to hear. Those dirty curls nodded towards the darkness of the hallway.

Steve would follow him anywhere. “Sure,” he agreed.

So Billy lead them until he found the bathroom, now empty with no towels or even a shower curtain, but he still went inside. Steve followed and turned to close the door behind them when he felt hands on his shoulders.

Billy flipped him around and pinned him to the flimsy partial board door like he was nothing. And Steve really felt like nothing.

“You gonna tell me now, pretty boy? You gonna tell me who the fuck that was with his damn hands all over you?” Billy pushed himself so close to Steve he could smell the blood on his face. His voice was low and animalistic in the way he barked every word.

Steve felt like he couldn’t breath. He weakly lifted his hands to push against Billy’s chest, nudging the gold chain with his fingertips and feeling only an immovable warm wall of muscle that felt too good under him. Then he lifted his hands to cup around Billy’s cheeks. Steve looked up into those ocean blue eyes foaming angry like waves against rocks. Crying salt water in frustration. Steve used the pads of his thumbs to wipe Billy’s tears as they cleaned off two streaks of grime from his face.

“Not now, Tiger. I don’t wanna talk about him right now. I wanna be here. Only here.” Billy’s eyes fell closed from those words. He sucked a deep breath of what must have tasted like Steve. “Here with you.”

“Always so damn romantic... at such stupid times.” Billy breathed deep, long breaths between his complaining. Steve recognized that as him settling down and stilling his mind before it worked itself up too much.

The deep breaths slowed down, and Billy’s head dipped forward to lean against Steve’s forehead. Then like two pieces fitting against the other their breaths synced with the gentle rubs of Steve’s thumbs. Gentle in ways they usually wouldn’t be, and comfortable in ways they usually couldn’t be.

“Can you tell me about it?” Steve’s voice was soft as he whispered.

Billy stirred like he was waking up. “Oh, uh...,” he moved one arm from the wood of the door to feel down Steve’s shoulder and only stopped when he had fingers wrapped around his wrist. “No. I don’t wanna talk about my shit trip. I actually do want your help.” Then he nodded towards the shower with a smile.

Steve furrowed his eyebrows. “You want to take a bath?” He chuckled.

With a roll of his eyes, Billy smiled. “Nah, I wanna take a hot shower. The hottest I can get it. Haven’t felt one of those in...,” his eyes went glossy.

Steve waited for him to finish, but Billy kept his eyes on the wood next to Steve’s head. “And you need my help? Are you injured?” He decided to continue on. The turmoil of being locked inside the upside down was something Steve couldn’t imagine, and he wasn’t going to try. All he wanted was Billy’s eyes bright and blue and on him. So he started small.

Billy blinked. Then he shook his head. “I just don’t want to be alone. Pretty boy like you makes great company.”

“Oh sure. Company. I can be fantastic company,” Steve let out a low laugh. He lifted his hands slowly and brought them down on the hem of Billy’s shirt. 

Looking up, he asked with his eyes if this was okay, and Billy replied with a soft nod of golden curls. Then Steve gently lifted the cotton of Billy’s undershirt up and off, pulling it over his head and through his arms.

Steve’s fingers guided softly across Billy’s chest. He couldn’t stop himself from exploring, feeling how the skin bounced under his fingertips. He crooked his hands just lightly to pull against the skin and it didn’t give. There was no gaping hole in the center of Billy’s chest. Only the unbroken familiar golden chain displayed on his beautiful skin. Steve let out a breath and moved his hands down.

The metal of Billy’s belt buckle felt otherworldly cold under Steve’s touch, but still he curled his hands around it and pulled the leather strap free. His bottom lip was caught in his teeth as he popped open the button on Billy’s jeans.

The dark denim slid down Billy’s thighs easy for how tight they were. Steve watched as Billy went on full display for him, usually commando when he could get away with it, his pants giving way to a soft cock curled over his hip.

Steve just drank him in. Billy moved an inch back to step out of his jeans and kicked them to the side before he went slowly for the bathtub, his legs and body sore where his clothes once were, and Steve could even make out new marks both healed and not healed.

“Let me...,” Steve whispered the words as he stepped up to lay his hand over the flat of Billy’s back. The boy snapped his head up to examine Steve, likely thinking of a scolding taunt to make, but he softened under the touch.

Steve pushed on his back and used his other hand to hold Billy’s hand as he stepped up into the bathtub.

“Got it from here,” Billy turned to crank the Byers’ bathtub nozzle. He turned the hot water on only, creating a lot of noise and a roll of steam. Then pulled the stopper so the shower started and brought with it more steam and a heavy moan from Billy’s lips.

Steve tried to give him privacy, he tried to act decent, but he couldn’t. He could only brace against the small bathrooms vanity and watch as the water cascaded down around Billy’s Adonis body.

He let his breath catch and hold inside his throat as Billy started showering. The water washing what it could of the layers of slime and blood while the heat gave a plumpness back into his golden skin, making it glossy like Billy had been sitting under the sun. Or getting out of the ocean after surfing. Steve could only imagine.

Billy turned so his back was to Steve and worked his arms up his chest to his neck and then into his head of hair. His fingers flexed through the curls as best they could. Steve noticed how his muscles were super tight with the action.

Billy jumped a little as he felt different hands touch at his head. Steve was leaned into the shower, throwing caution and good Christian values to the wind, as he brushed the tips of his fingers against Billy’s hair.

“Let me help,” Steve’s voice was raw like the pounding of the water from the shower head. Billy could only nod. He dropped his arms down at his sides with a wet smack and Steve didn’t need him to say he was thankful.

He focused on drinking in the way Billy’s long hair bounced with the pressure of the water. The slight frizz and volume gone, his blond turned into more of a sand color, and the water made his hair longer. Steve worked his hands through clumps of dirt and something thicker that ran red with the water. He ran his hands until they could brush with no catch, no tangles, only soft to the touch.

The stream of water flicked off and it shook Steve into letting go of Billy’s hair. Steve took a respectable step back into the vanity while Billy wiped his hands across his skin to try and get the water off. He shook out his hair like a dog, and it was slightly endearing.

Billy stepped out of the shower easier than he went in. He glanced down at his pile of clothes left on the ground, before he lifted his eyes to Steve.

“Thanks,” he whispered, and it took Steve’s breath away.

Then he stepped up into Steve’s face, his hands crowded on either side of the vanity, his body pressed hot and wet into Steve’s hips.

Steve didn’t need to think, or to breath, as he moved his own arms to circle around Billy’s neck and bring him down for a kiss.

If touching Billy was enough to take Steve to the beaches of the ocean, tasting him was swimming under the California sun.

Steve cupped his head gently, pushing his fingers into the still steaming warmth, while he sunk deep into the press of lips. They were hungry for each other and moved to press themselves skin to skin as close as they could possibly get.

Billy’s hands moved from the vanity to slide up Steve’s hips. He circled his arms around Steve’s waist and pulled him hard into his chest. Steve whimpered through the kiss.

“Billy,” he bit out desperate into cherry red lips.

Then the door rustled with a knock against the wood. “Billy, are you okay, sweetie?” Joyce’s voice sounded from the other side.

Reluctantly, they let their kiss part with a sloppy noise. Billy took a step back, his hands slid against the stiff material of Steve’s jacket like he didn’t want to let go, then he turned to collect his clothing.

“Give me another minute,” he called back out to Joyce, his voice hard again.

Steve silently watched as Billy dressed back into his dirty clothes. His nose wrinkled up from the smell, but he was visibility happier and livelier. He hopped back into his jeans and buckled them up with quick hands. “Gotta make an appearance, new zombie boy in town gots lots of fans.” He joked with a tone of voice that didn’t sound like a joke.

“You’ve always had one fan, even before you pulled this shit.” Steve ran a hand through his hair, pulling the strands tight as he willed away a blush.

Billy watched him with a curious eye. And oh, Steve recognized that as something that was never good. “I’m not done with you yet, Harrington. I’ve still got questions about that sorry sack of shit touching you back in the woods.” He went to the door and twisted the nob in his hand hard, like he wanted to break it.

Steve could only follow on his heels like a puppy back out to the kitchen.


	4. What remains of home

Billy got back to the kitchen first and stopped short. Steve almost bumped into him from how he was walking looking down at his feet. He only just recovered, putting one hand on the wall of the narrow hallway to steady himself, and followed where Billy’s eyes were looking. 

Nancy was standing close to the middle of the kitchen, Jonathan had his hand on the middle of her back in a comforting way made to steady her. But she was bursting. Her small frame took up more space than it seemed it would. “So it’s true.” She pointed her tone towards Billy. “That monster didn’t kill you along with everyone else.” 

There was a malice in her words, as if she couldn’t believe it. Steve still couldn’t believe it himself, but Nancy’s voice was something different. 

Billy simply held his arms out a little and tried to give a weak smile. “Miss me, Wheeler?” He joked. 

Steve rolled his eyes, but Nancy didn’t move. “I want to know how much of it was you. How far did the Mind Flayer get it’s claws inside of you? How many people did you kill?” 

That caused Billy to rumble with a shiver under his skin Steve hadn’t seen in a long time. His shoulder hunched and his chin dropped slightly, posing like a wolf hunting, before he started to stalk forward into Nancy’s space. 

Jonathan tried, for as much as he could, to bring Nancy closer to his body and shield her. But when she’s in reporter mode she might as well be a wrought iron gate, unmoving and beautiful. 

Steve pushed himself off the wall and thankfully caught Billy’s wrist in his hand. He didn’t pull or move, only felt the hot skin flex under his own. 

“You wanna know, Nancy Drew?” Billy was still feet from her but they way he rolled her workplace nickname made the space stifling. A nickname he had no reason in their time line to know. “Wanna know? I’ll tell you, and you won’t believe me... but I’ll tell you.”

“Try me,” Nancy had her small chin tilted up to look him in the eye. 

Still leaning against the counter, Hopper was enjoying another drink of water and seemed unbothered, while Joyce standing next to him was wringing her hands out again. The children had settled themselves in the empty living room, sitting around on the carpet, but they were stretching their necks to watch into the kitchen. 

Steve looked to Hooper and Joyce with pleading eyes, but Hopper only shrugged. 

Billy’s body stayed tense. He took a long, shuddering breath that Steve knew would help the burning inside. “Alright. Not a single damn thing was me.”

“Bullshit,” Nancy snapped back. 

Steve’s eyes widened and his grip on Billy’s wrist got tight, but the other boy only laughed. “Told you.” He raised one side of his lip in a sneer. “The only thing that monster did was let me crash my car into its front yard. Then it dug claws into my leg and dragged me down to... to kill me,” he took a sharp breath but kept talking, “I thought. But it let me run. I went out into the street where I tried to drive off and that’s when it showed me him.” 

The room grew a little colder. Steve let himself get closer to Billy’s warm side. His grip around Billy’s wrist was making his hand feel numb. 

Nancy and everyone else was wearing matching confused faces. “And who is him?” She asked. 

“He was me,” Billy replied. 

Nancy’s breath hitched. The rest of the room kept their mouths closed. Billy continued to glare daggers down into Nancy’s curly hair, his eyes unblinking and unseeing. 

“The Mind Flayer, goofy ass son of a bitch, ripped my skin off an put it on some doll. A... puppet. I’ve been calling him a doppelgänger.” There was a shuffling of understanding, and Billy took advantage of the slight lapse in Steve’s attention to step forward more. His wrist slipped free from the hold, and let himself get inches into Nancy’s face. 

His breath smelt like ash as he spoke, “I was taken, you writing this down? I was gagged and forced to watch every second through the mind of this bastard as he wore my face around. I was forced to watch everything. But I didn’t do shit. That answered it for you, Nancy Drew?”

“William!” Joyce shot his name from across the room, but Hopper was holding her from running with a soft hand on her arm. 

Jonathan’s hands were pulling on the back of Nancy’s jacket desperately but neither moved. Steve swallowed a blockage trying to form as a sob inside of his throat down, then he moved. One arm pushed between Billy and Nancy like a line he was marking do not cross. The other hand hovered lightly above Billy’s shoulder, wishing to wrap around the flexing muscles, but floated. 

Billy looked up into Steve’s wide brown eyes with a slow resistance, the fight slinking back into a darker place, and leaving only sea foam blue clear as the ocean after a storm. 

“Come on man, I’m sure she got it.” Steve let his hand wrap around his arm and push him a couple steps back. “Like, she doesn’t even have a notebook so it’s useless rattling on.” 

Billy let himself get pressed into the counter top. He let Steve push the mug still half filled with water back into his hands. And he let himself laugh. 

Hopper started back up chatting, this time to Nancy who was leaned back against her own counter. Like two fighters taking a break in their corners, Steve thought. It was a strange feeling. 

“I didn’t know I was going to survive the explosion by jumping, it was a knee jerk reaction really. But I had already been to the other side with Joyce so I knew what to expect, at least mostly.” Hopper’s words were slow and deliberate as he spoke. “When I found Bill I thought he was a dead body. I thought, not another kid taken like this... this,” and he couldn’t bring himself to say it so he just motioned towards his lips and dragged his hand down his throat. 

Nancy didn’t know and thankfully didn’t ask, but to Hopper’s other side Joyce squeezed her eyes closed and shivered. 

Steve could only imagine. He watched from the corner of his eyes as Billy kept his own reaction in check, kept his smirk on his face like it was just another day. Steve wondered if he would ever tell him about exactly what Hopper meant. 

“Then Bill came back to life, right in my hands. He spit that bile all over me, but he was alive. Then we stayed alive together down there for so long I lost track of time. So yes, Nancy, I think he’s innocent.”

Nancy nodded her head along with him. She wrapped one hand around the back of her neck and gave Jonathan’s hand holding hers a little squeeze. “I’m sorry, then, Billy. I didn’t know-“

“Don’t,” Billy’s voice was raw. His smirk still ever present, and his demeanor cool as he leaned against the counter. Practiced and cool, Steve could tell it was crafted because he had crafted that same aura once upon a time. “Apologize to someone who cares, ice princess. It ain’t me.”

She rolled her eyes but kept quiet. 

That night Joyce tried to convince them to go to a hospital, to try and call Dr. Owens and get checked up, anything for the sake of their health. But Hopper scoffed at the idea while Billy flat out laughed. They had already made plans to stick together once they got out. Hopper explained that his cabin would be enough of a recovery ward for him to stand.

Even when Nancy timidity described how she blew a hole in multiple places of the walls with a hunting rifle and how the Mind Flayer busted a chunk out of the ceiling to get to El, the two were not derailed from their plans. 

And if Billy looked a little impressed about Nancy shooting a gun, Steve didn’t hold it against him. 

They all walked out to the porch together, quiet in the middle of the night, dead tired, but light on their feet and smiles on their faces. El whined low to Joyce to let her stay with Hopper and with hesitance she agreed. 

Billy was already sitting in the passengers side of Steve’s car with the window rolled down and a cigarette in his mouth. Steve considered asking if Billy wanted to drive them out to the woods to the remains of Hopper’s cabin but the other boy would enjoy that far too much. If Billy was a speed demon before he spent 4 months without the wind in his hair, Steve could only shiver as he imagined how fast Billy would drive now. 

The ride was much quieter after Max let go of Billy with a final hug and rode back home with Lucas. El wasn’t as talkative. Steve stole a glance into his rear view window and saw her with her head comfortable on the pillow of Hopper’s round stomach, maybe she had fallen asleep. 

The clock on the dashboard read past midnight. When Steve’s eyes lingered on the cool white glow of the numbers, he got caught off guard by Billy’s own cold look. He was glowering now, his eyes half lidded, similar to the lazy cat relaxation he gets into when he’s stoned. Steve smiled as he found the way Billy’s hair now drying out and fluffing back up was making him look like a tired lion. 

He didn’t voice his comparison, scared he would make Billy laugh and he would be too pretty doing it. But even with no words Billy smiled right back. 

Steve kept his hands on the wheel right where his father taught him, at 10 and 2, and didn’t cup his hand over Billy’s plush thigh like he wanted to. 

When they got to the cabin the night was deep and glowing moonlight blue. Hopper opened the back car door quietly so as not to wake El. Then he lifted her and carried her inside. 

Billy and Steve both got out of the car at the same time. Steve jogged a little to open the door for Hopper, it creaked loudly and tilted dangerously to one side. How it was holding on at all he didn’t know. They watched Hopper go into a back bedroom, and Steve took his chance to glance around at the inside of the cabin. He was lingering for any excuse to make this moment last a little longer. 

“Are you going to need any help? The place looks a little trashed?” Steve giggled low. “I mean it’s rustic, super cute for a forest witch, but it’s totally trashed.”

Billy laughed, the smoke of his breath in the cold night hair blowing around his pretty face. “Nah, I’ve slept in worse.” He smiled lopsided. Then looked at Steve out of the corner of his eye. “Much, much worse.” 

That had Steve’s heart beating hard right into his throat. He wanted to beg Billy to come stay at his home, wanted to throw himself at the boy, but he kept his words secret. Turning down his eyes, Steve watched the mold on the edges on the front door. 

“I get it-,” he started to turn on his heels right when a gruff voice interrupted him. 

“Harrington!” Hopper was standing in the doorway of the back bedroom with his hands on his hips. “Steve.” He corrected himself with a smile. “You have any plans? Sure could use another set of hands to clean this up a little, if you don’t mind?”

Instantly Steve’s cheeks felt a little rose tinted, and his eyes bugged. “No- uh, no, Sir! I don’t have any special plans tonight. Yeah, no. I mean... sure! I’d be happy to help.” 

Next to him Billy snorted as he pushed his way inside. Hopper closed the door to the bed room behind him as he walked toward the living room. They all three stopped and stood right under the huge hole in the ceiling Nancy promised. Billy let out a low, comically timed whistle. 

“This is gonna be...,” he dragged out the last word then shook his head. 

“Nah, this is too much right now.” Hopper said. He shrugged off his jacket and threw it over the back of the couch, covered in fallen leaves and branches, and it must be where that moldy fabric smell was coming from. “Lets just clear a dry, clean space on the floor and find something to lay down. Just for tonight.”

Billy instantly moved to get to work, picking a corner that seemed the most clean and far away from the weather of the open ceiling. He pushed aside a fallen bookcase like it was nothing. Hopper joined him, pushing trash and fallen books with his thick officers boots, while Steve looked on from the side. 

He watched as they worked in sync, wordlessly moving around each other like they had all their lives, and Steve was struck by how hard they must have wanted to survive. How hard Billy wanted to return to the land of the living. Maybe, Steve let himself dream for a moment, to return to him. 

But he stopped that idea. He ran a hand through his hair, shaking out the mess of it, loosening those thoughts, and pushed himself to join them in what weak way he could. 

On the hardwood floor they eventually cleared off a little space for someone to sleep. Billy accepted a folded pile of blankets and a pair of old pajama pants from Hopper that were slightly damp to the touch, and maybe darker than the chief left them, but mostly fine. And as Billy said, better than where they were before. 

“Goodnight,” Hopper nodded towards Steve respectfully, then turned towards Billy. He clapped his hand over Billy’s shoulder, heavy and hard, then squeezed. They lingered for a moment on more words left unspoken, before Hopper pulled the younger man in for a tight hug. 

Steve turned away and pretended to fiddle with his jacket sleeves. He didn’t turn around until there was a clicking of the bedroom door closing and Billy was clearing his throat. The soft scuttling sounds of blankets being spread across the floor let him know it was clear. 

“I should be going then,” Steve said weakly, his thumb pointed over his shoulder. “See you around town, I guess-,”

“Come here,” Billy’s words were dripping mean like orders, but his eyes betrayed how soft he felt. Steve couldn’t help but move as he was trapped in their beam. “You don’t have shit to get back to, don’t lie to me. I mean, unless your parents had some serious character development and decided to not be absent assholes while I was gone?”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh. It was like nothing changed, Billy was still arrogant as ever. “Nah, they haven’t changed.” Steve went closer to Billy, watching as he laid out three layers of blankets carefully across the floor, stopped just short of reaching out and touching him. 

“Then you’ll sleep here,” Billy finalized it. 

Steve watched as he stripped his shirt and jeans and stepped into the baggy pajamas. He sank to the floor, stretching out his legs, and propped his chin up on one hand. “Don’t make me beg,” he huffed. 

Then Steve was dropping his jacket to the floor and slinking off his shoes and belt, before crawling into the empty space next to Billy. He moved close, his hands itching to touch, but he clasped them around the blanket Billy offered him to cover up with. 

They laid down on the hard floor that the three blankets did nothing to soften, both turned on their sides facing each other. Billy’s blond hair was soft looking fanned out behind him, Steve remembered how it felt under his fingertips, and his blue eyes were ghosts in the moonlight glowing a new color that scared Steve right to his core. 

He couldn’t think of a thing to say. Couldn’t exactly sing how not having to sleep alone for once was enough to make him cry. 

But before he had to decide, Billy’s lingering eyes let their cold fingers go from Steve’s throat. They fluttered closed behind long, dark eyelashes. 

Steve watched intimately as Billy’s bare chest evened out his breaths, and his fingers relaxed their grip of the blanket. Steve watched as Billy lived right in front of him. As he let his defenses he held for so long in unimaginable places fall right in front of Steve like it was so easy. 

His hands moved forward, just enough to brush the back of his hand against Billy’s own, feeling with his cold skin how Billy was warm to the touch. How one scar across the velvet skin was even softer when it should have been rougher. It would have been easy, just as easy as Billy always makes it seem, to hold his hand. But Steve pulled back.

Steve gripped his own hands against his chest trying to steady his deer in the headlights rapid heartbeat. He doesn’t know when he stopped watching Billy breath but it was only from exhaustion because he never wanted to look away. 

“Sleeping beauty,” was the only warning Steve got that morning. Hissed words right into his ear from a Billy that was now very much awake, and very much wanting him awake too. 

Steve’s eyes snapped open to the crushed in roof. He blinked once and then that image was replaced with a messy head of blond curls and two ocean blue eyes. Billy had rolled over the makeshift bed, hooked one leg over Steve, and straddled him. 

“Oh, check out who decided to join us,” Billy whispered right into the soft pink of Steve’s parted lips. 

“Billy-,” Steve tried to get out, he tried to pled, but Billy cut him off with a needy kiss. 

His eyes fluttered closed and he drew in a sharp gasp, but he felt fantastic. Billy kissed him vigorously, not even allowing a moan to slip as he tongued open Steve’s lips and claimed his mouth. Their teeth clacked together hard but neither could stop, his tongue was so soft and warm inside. So demanding and rough against his own. Steve whimpered and took as much as he would give. 

Billy broke away first, coming off with a pop and gulping down air, but waisted no time in continuing down to Steve’s neck. 

“Billy,” Steve couldn’t help himself as he moaned his name. His fingers sought and found residence in a crown of curls, sinking in and petting them softly as Billy worked him over. 

“Billy, please,” But Billy didn’t stop, he licked down and across Steve’s panting throat. His beard scrapped the skin raw in the best way, leaving his pale skin bright red and glistening wet with spit. Then, without warning, so easy, Billy bit his teeth down. 

“Oh God,” came out more as a cry than words. Billy’s lips pressed against his pulse point to join his hungry teeth and marked him, pulled and pushed the skin until it gave under his strength, flowering into a maroon colored bruise that tasted copper in his mouth. 

Steve gripped blond hair desperately, whimpering and trembling, everything and only the word desperate as he let Billy leave his mark. 

When Billy pulled away his breath felt like steam blowing into a burn. Billy licked up the side of the mark, tasting everything that was his. And he stayed breathing against Steve’s neck. 

“Mine,” he claimed him. “Mine,” he repeated. 

Steve couldn’t speak, his voice was taken from him by the feeling of Billy’s teeth still buried deep in his skin. He never wanted the feeling to go away. So he answered by caressing his hands through Billy’s soft hair and nodding lightly. 

Billy didn’t need him to speak, thank god, and let Steve push him with the fingers in his hair against his throat once again. He dragged his tongue against the skin, teasing the over sensitive area. His beard hair torture against the mark. 

“Steve,” he spoke so softly and low Steve might have missed it. Might have dreamt it. His breath caught in his throat and he opened his mouth to beg him to repeat it, when the creaking of a bedroom door interrupted him. 

“Morning,” was all that needed to be said for Billy to jump from Steve like he was made of fire. 

Hopper walked out rubbing his eyes and dressed in mix-matching flannel pajamas. He was looking away, towards the remains of the small kitchen, but it was enough for Billy. He scrambled up and away from Steve in seconds, his face cherry red all the way down to his golden necklace. 

Steve lifted himself to his elbows, focusing on trying to catch his breath. “Morning,” he croaked back. 

Billy didn’t say anything. He stood from the floor and stalked into the bathroom with wide swinging arms. The door slammed behind him, thankfully it was in once piece enough to do that. 

The small cabin became quiet, Hopper fiddled around with a dish in the kitchen while Steve slowly lifted his hand to curl around his neck. He touched the mark and then looked at his hands, a part of him wishing there would be blood, but it came back clean. 

“You want some water? Don’t have any food. But Joyce should be coming by soon with some groceries. Until then, we’ve got sparkling Hawkins tap.” Hopper’s voice was nice, kind even, it made Steve’s spine straighten. 

“No. Yeah, no, I really can’t. I mean I shouldn’t have even stayed.” Steve rushed out a laugh as he pushed himself up. “Really have to head home.” He fumbled around collecting his belt and shoes, dropping them once, before he lunged towards the door. 

Steve turned and looked at Hopper then to the still closed bathroom door, then back to Hopper. He worked his lower lip. And Hopper just kept smiling at him. 

“See you later,” Steve said, then ran back out to his car.


	5. Chapter 5

Working at family video sucked, but now it just felt weird. Steve picked at the turtleneck he was wearing to not too subtly cover up the bite mark on his neck. Thank God it was chilly enough outside so he could get away with it. 

Steve found himself leaning against one register while Keith was standing behind him fiddling with the VHS rewind track, clicking it on and off, on and off. It was making the blood inside of Steve’s veins boil up to his knitted high neck sweater. 

“Don’t you have something to actually do?” Steve snapped at him. Short nails clicking nervously against the cash register stopped still as Steve waited for Keith’s reply; but the other boy simply shrugged. 

“I’m rewinding shit, Harrington. Don’t you know anything?” And that sent Steve’s blood hotter. He pushed his palm against the side of the register to lift himself off with one sharp jab. Keith watched from the corner of eyes as Steve stomped off. 

“Yeah sure,” he grumbled to himself. Stalking around a shelf and absentmindedly straightening rows of boxes, Steve kept walking until he got closer to the wide open windows. “Don’t you know anything, Steve?” He mocked just above a whisper. He picked up and set back a VHS’ plastic case on the shelf with a sharp click, wincing from the noise, before reaching the window. 

Steve pressed his shoulder against the cold glass. Even with the thick material of his sweater the Autum air nipped right though. He laid his forehead down as well, sighing out and letting the toxic words building up he wanted to say come out as fog against the glass. 

“Don’t you know anything,” he repeated. The wet condensation on the glass pearled and started dripping down in fat drops. Steve breathed out again, allowing more fog to roll and more drips to drop. 

He considered how the water rolled slow just like the water that held onto Billy’s back as he stepped out of the shower at the Byers’ house. With no towel, Billy could only shrug at the water as it rolled down his muscles and scars, clutching and turning with every micro-flaw it could find, then curving and falling to the ground with a noiseless splash. 

Steve felt a little that that water, clutching Billy even when he knows he will fall eventually. He poked one finger against the glass to smear a particularly large drop; then he pulled his sleeve over his fingers and wiped the glass clean. 

And there he was, Billy. Blond hair pulled into a ball cap and walking head down along the sidewalk with his hands deep inside a baggy denim jacket. He was trying to be inconspicuous but it wasn’t really working out for him. 

If anything Billy’s slumped shoulders made it all the more apparent it was him, so foreign simply walking down the streets of Hawkins, nothing like the Billy Hargrove anyone would recognize. Except for Steve who couldn’t stop thinking about him. And couldn’t stop himself from wanting to run out to the boy’s side. He considered it very real maybe for a moment, remembered what it felt like to be a drip of water falling against the floor. 

It wasn’t a good idea; but he had to at least try. So he started towards the counter already stripping out of his green work vest. 

“I’m heading out for the day, man. Feeling some sort of way. Sorry!” Steve explained as he brushed into the break room just to dump his vest over a chair and turn to leave. 

“Some sort of way?” Keith turned the corner and stood right in front of Steve. Looking dumb and annoyed at the same time. 

“Yeah, like,” Steve lifted his hands to float around between them and made the most obnoxious gagging noise he could muster. Fake vomiting once, then twice quickly, and using the action to back Keith up just enough to slip by. 

Steve opened the door to the store and took in a breath of cold Hawkins air. He easily spotted Billy still walking down the street. His eyes were turned down to the street so it was easy for Steve to come up right beside him without being noticed. 

“Billy,” Steve whispered. And he imagined Billy would jump at the call, but he doesn’t. He didn’t flinch. Just stopped and turned over his shoulder to see him.

“Ah,” he was wearing a grimace Steve caught for a second before Billy curled his lips into a grin. “I see my hat didn’t work out like I planned.”

“Maybe for someone else it does,” Steve smiled. 

Billy replied to the smile with a weak one of his own. Then he turned back around to keep waking down the main drag. Steve had to jog a little to get back to his side. Easily, he slips his hands in his back jeans pockets and falls into a matching stride. 

“So why exactly are you out here with that ugly hat on?” Steve asked. 

Billy shrugged nonchalant. “Nothing better to do than walk.”

“Right. Wait- don’t you live in a half destroyed cabin you have to clean up?” 

“Caught me,” Billy laughed ever softly. “I’m skipping out on Hop. Don’t really feel like lifting lumber and hammering shit.” He turns to look at Steve once, their eyes meet because Steve hasn’t stopped looking at him. 

“Feels like I’ve done enough work for a lifetime,” Billy muttered. He turned his face forward down the street. 

Steve hates that he knows what that means. Hates that Billy must feel like a ghost walking up and down the streets of Hawkins. Hates that he’s wearing a hat to try and hide who he is, when months ago Billy would be driving the loudest car in town. 

“Wanna go somewhere?” He tried to ask but it comes out more begging. Steve bites his lips as he waits. 

“Somewhere, pretty boy?” Billy’s tone peaks. 

Smiling again, Steve shrugs. “Yeah, get lost. Just me and you. Don’t know if you remember but there isn’t much to do in this drag of a town.” 

Billy stops walking quick so Steve almost bumps into him. Didn’t realize he had scooted closer to talk right into Billy’s ear so intimately. Billy’s eyes are close enough to see the swirling green and blue fighting for majority. Curling together to create a new color all their own, special and beautiful uniquely Billy. 

“You wanna lead the way?” Billy breaths out. 

“Yeah,” Steve keeps his hands clenched in his back pockets. He wants to reach out and run his palm across Billy’s shoulders in a comforting touch, but he can’t. So he starts them walking down the street again. 

He hadn’t had a place in mind when he asked for Billy to join him. It was an instinctual thing seeing him be uncomfortable out here on the street, to try and get him away. Steve ran through the small catalogue of things he wasted time doing: sitting by the quarry, going to Benny’s diner, listening to music in their one record store, smoking behind the strip mall the palace arcade is on. All of that felt empty, too much and too little at the same time. Another world all together that Billy might have outgrown. 

So Steve remembered farther back, dug into his catalogue before he had his red BMW he left in the family video parking lot. Back when it was him and Tommy H. riding bikes around. There was a trail that might still be left around behind the street signs of Boston and Maple street if he looked for it, and if there wasn’t he can see it so clearly he’ll make a new one. With Billy. 

“This way,” Steve smirked and lead the way with Billy right on his heals, the baseball cap doing a good job of covering up his smile. Maybe for someone else, not for Steve. 

They walked quietly down the semi crowded street. No one turned to watch, at least outright. And for that Steve was grateful because he hadn’t considered if Billy would really be okay with them going on a hike. 

“Through here,” and there is was, right behind the gaudy corner street sign, a thin trail the size of bike tires carved into the bushes. Turning and twisting a path away from the civilized road and leading off into unkept woods. “God, and the trail is still here. It’s been... years,” Steve faded off, not ready to do math in his head. 

Billy watched from the sidewalk, an unreadable expression of interest and horror on his pretty face. “Ain’t that some cat trail, or where possums and raccoons go?” 

“Is it?” Steve feigned ignorance, something easy for him. He took the initiative and stepped lightly over the trail a few feet down it. “Wouldn’t that be cool to find a cute little stray cat?”

Billy was still hesitant, but he swayed on his feet. “Possums are ugly as hell,” he growled low. 

Steve scoffed at him, walking farther. “Possums are cute!”

“Sure- you would think that, backwoods freak,” Billy chuckled, his annoyance turned up to a sarcastic roll of his eyes, and he took a step onto the trail as he did it. Almost like he allowed himself one second of acting without thought. One second of acting like how he was before. 

Steve lead them single file down the knee high shrubs and weeds towards the line of trees. He ducked under the branches of one, cupping his hand on the familiar bark, while he turned around to make sure Billy was following. He was, hands still shoved in his pockets but trudging along all the same. 

They didn’t talk as they walked. Steve breathing through his mouth to take in the crumbling leaves as they die on the trees. Just turning golden caramel and orange around them. The stench of moss and lingering dew not burned off by the hot summer sun fogging the air. But to Steve, it breathed like memories. It breathed like happiness, calmness. He turned over his shoulder again, making sure Billy was following, and felt a jump in his throat as he noticed he was. 

Above them the woods got thicker before they thinned out. Steve’s feet took them without thinking too hard about it. And good, because if he considered the way the dirt and fallen leaves would stain his sneakers he might not have come. But he’s glad he did. He is so glad he did as he finally found the end to the woods. 

Trees gave way to a clearing, a narrow dip of green and weeds that passed for flowers. It was once a river bed, Steve remembered Tommy explaining, maybe a lifetime ago. Now it was just rich soil coating buried rocks that trees can’t grow on. Now it was just a neat hangout place for kids to come and explore the riverbed that leads up to a shallow cave in the middle of the woods. It’s really just a couple dozen feet dip into limestone that was carved out by the flow of the water now left to stand empty, but to Steve it was a mansion. 

“Check it out,” he lifted one hand into the air as he stepped into the clearing. Spinning dramatically around the sunlight beams coming down from the break in the amber leaves overhead. 

Billy stepped out behind him with wide eyes looking upwards. The sunlight coming through the trees caught his sharp jaw perfectly, his eyes blue glistening wet as fresh paint, he glittered like a movie star in the middle of the woods. Steve turned his eyes back to the ground to catch his breath. Can’t feel that, ain’t allowed that, he reminded himself. 

He cleared his throat, pointing towards the cave weakly like they should go sit. “Feel sufficiently lost, Hargrove?” Steve asked. 

“Sure as hell lost, Harrington,” he chuckled as he followed.

Resting their backs against the walls with almost a sigh of relief, they settled down easy onto the cold stone. It wasn’t a long walk, nothing in Hawkins is ever far away, but it took a lot out of them. Steve realized he was working up a sweat in his turtleneck. 

Billy slipped off the ball cap and his hair tumbled from the leather adjustable strap keeping it in place. Steve watched from the corner of his eye as Billy ran his hands through the long blond hair. It’s only been months, less than half a year, but his hair grew so long it’s ridiculously unfair. Steve sucks in his lip and turned sharply as the words rock star stabs into his mind. 

“You country hicks bring dead bodies here or something?” Billy spoke rude and abrasive as always. “Should I be offended, I’m not-,”

“No,” Steve nudged his knee against Billy’s to shut him up. Stops him before he can call himself dead or ‘zombie boy‘ again. “Nothing like that, it’s just a relaxing place to hide out. Thought you would enjoy a secret cave more than anyone.” Steve kept their knees together. Let himself have that intimate touch. And gracefully, Billy allowed it. 

“Or,” Billy’s voice rolled easy, calm, “it’s a good place to fuck?”

Steve choked out a laugh. The sound echoing. He waited for it to stop before replying. Billy's shit eating grin didn’t go away that quick. “That too-,” Steve felt his cheeks blush red, shoved his leg again. “But I didn’t bring any lube or condoms. And... honestly I’ve never had sex out here.”

Billy mulled his words before talking. “Sounds like a missed opportunity, babe. Good acoustics for a romp.”

“You didn’t bring any either,” Steve pointed out. 

“I didn’t know you were going to chase me down the street and take me here?” Billy defended. 

Steve nodded, lips turned up in a knowing prowl. “Besides that, we’ve done it plenty of places. My bed, your bed, back of the Camaro, lockers at the pool, the break room table at scoops-,”

“Miss that shitty place,” Billy groaned out. “Missed you in that outfit- bent over the table so pretty-,”

“Leave that gaudy uniform burnt in the past where it belongs! And, If I recall; it was you bent over the benches of the pool’s locker room wearing those red shorts that really did it for you,” Steve couldn’t help the words that came out, couldn’t help the way he remembered Billy’s throaty voice as he was the one doing the begging. The smell of suntan lotion as lube as they melted together on those well worn dark oak benches. How Billy looked with those shorts hanging off one thick thigh and letting Steve take control for once, like they owned the place and had all the time in the world. Steve swallowed. Couldn’t trust his voice to work any more. 

Billy swallowed next to him, throat working as he no doubt remembered it too. His hands reached out to Steve’s that he didn’t even realize were white knuckle scraping down his thighs. Billy wrapped his hands around Steve to ground him, to reassure him, to let him know-

“Yeah, pretty boy,” he whispered into the cave so low it didn’t echo, “that did it for me.”

And it’s such a simple, easy thing to say it makes Steve angry. Makes him hold Billy’s hand back rough almost, squeezing the muscle and calluses like he can yank that time back. But he can’t. So he exhales lowly. The heat in his stomach loosens, because now is not the best time to get horny or angry. 

The silence of bitten back words stretched on. Steve wasn’t uncomfortable, he never could be truly with Billy so close, but he knew he had dirty clothes he should be hanging out. There were questions Billy had asked, and God he should be talking about Henry. Steve’s words soured in his stomach before he could even get them up into his throat. This cave felt quiet, felt sacred, peaceful like sitting in a graveyard. He couldn’t bring a drop of black ink into their pool of water. Steve let his mind linger back to golden summer sun and tanning lotion. 

“They all missed you, you know? Like Hell. They dedicated a candle vigil and put a pretty impressive remembrance speech up on the bulletins.” Steve rambled lowly, his words pointed to the wall. 

Next to him Billy stiffened. The hand holding Steve’s going slightly lax but not completely unfurling his grip. “Who?” he asked. 

“The other lifeguards,” Steve chided, “they really lost you, and Heather Holloway, of course.”

“Those idiots,” Billy groaned, his voice low and wet as he tried to keep from showing emotion. “I don’t want to ask what they said about me. Nothing good-,”

“Only good,” Steve squeezed his hand, fells the muscle swell. “They all said you were full of potential, aspirations for life, really going places.”

“Lots of big words there, pretty boy,” Billy hissed. 

“Shut up,” Steve flicked his eyes to the side to make sure Billy wasn’t watching him as he continued to talk. Didn’t know if he could finish it if he was. “Freddy was there, talked to me a little bit about what they didn’t put on the bulletin.”

Billy groaned, the mentioning of his pool coworker sending a nervous shiver through his body. He tried to yank his hand from Steve’s but this was too good to miss. “He told me all about how you gave him big brother advice about picking up girls?” Steve leaned into Billy’s space while wigging his brows, “oh, and how he didn’t take any of it. But you’ll never guess what!” 

“And what’s that, gossip fiend?” Billy groaned out. 

“Zoe was crying big time at the vigil, so Freddy decided to be a real stand up guy and give her a shoulder to cry on. They’ve been dating for months now.” Steve coyly smirked, “and it’s kinda because of you?”

There was a moment of silence, Billy’s brain thinking loudly right next to him. But all the guy did was work his plush lips together to a thin line, chewing on the inside, and keep his eyes averted. 

Billy was facing the floor, a blush creeping over his cheeks. Some of his long blond hair tumbled over his shoulder and covered half his face. Steve wanted to brush it aside, tuck it behind his ear. Steve wanted to poke, to prod, to touch so much. Every inch of Billy deserved to be held. Instead, he gripped Billy’s hand just a smidge tighter.

Steve left it at that. Turned his own eyes to face away from Billy. Let his head roll back on the stone walls. 

Around them the forest made noise but it was muffled. The mouth of the cave working like a filter to keep them protected. Steve wants to stay leaned against this wall forever, even if he knows the sun must be setting at some point of time and it’s asking for trouble trying to follow a bike trail through the woods at night. Even if Billy doesn’t speak one more word to him the whole time they’re there, he doesn’t want to leave. 

Billy shuffles alive next to him, pulling his hand free of the grasp and working his palms against his denim clad thighs. There was no sweat, Steve pretends he doesn’t notice the way he wipes off the lingering touch. He dreads for a moment, Billy’s readying to stand up and leave. Or demand they head back. Steve doesn’t care if he wants help with Hopper and the cabin, that sounds more interesting than family video. 

Thankfully, Billy doesn’t leave. He turns his head to the side, Steve’s watching from the corner of his eyes and follows the motion. It feels like they are laying back in bed, their hair messy by the pillow now messy from the cave wall, and the silence around them making a false sense of protection that loosens their lips. 

“Why did you bring me here?” Billy asks. His voice gruff and mean, interrogating. 

Steve pinches his brows together. Makes a point of keeping his voice quiet. “This is one of my favorite spots, just a super cool place?”

“Nah, Harrington,” Billy prods. 

“I saw you walking down the street and skipped out on work to join you?” Steve tries again. 

Billy lifts his top lip in a snarl. “Why?”

“Family video blows,” Steve’s attempt at humor falls flat when Billy’s face doesn’t change. 

“Why me?” 

Steve gulps. Wants to look away but doesn’t. He keeps his head soft on the pillow of stone. Searches Billy’s mask of a face a while before he settles on an answer. “Because I missed you,” he whispers. 

Billy’s breath catches. He turns sharply away, this time his long hair easily falls down to cover his whole face, he gives a whole body recoil. Like he’s shocked, like Steve shocked him. That hurts a lot more than Steve imagined it would. 

“Missed me, pretty boy?” Billy’s breath blows against the curtain of his long hair. His voice stale as the mold growing up the back of the cave, or the piles of dead leaves curling off the trees. Crumbling and falling down as ash. 

Billy stands up quick, just as Steve starts remembering forests and portals in the dark and black ash floating out from it. 

“Let’s get headin back, Harrington.” Billy stomped off. “Don’t want Hopper comin to fuckin look for me.”

“Yeah, we should go. I can help you with the cabin work.” Steve says it nonchalant. Standing up himself and shrugging. Dusting off his jeans as he follows Billy the way they came in. 

“I didn’t ask you to help-,”

“I’ll help,” Steve doesn’t listen to Billy, doesn’t spare him but a flick of a glance as he pushes past him to lead back to the main drag of Hawkins.


End file.
